Perhaps standards are different in Rotorua?

When you think that our politicians can’t sink much lower when it comes to matters related to the dreadful regime in Beijing all one has to do is wait another day or two.

Stuff has a major piece (a double page spread in this morning’s Dominion-Post) about the situation of the Uighur people in Xinjiang province in China, focusing on the stories of some of the Uighurs now living in New Zealand.

But what I wanted to highlight was the reaction of our politicians, National Party foreign affairs spokesman (and MP for Rotorua) Todd McClay in particular (emphasis added).

“Abuses of human rights are a concern wherever they occur,” says National’s Foreign Affairs spokesperson Todd McClay, “however, the existence and purpose of vocational training centres is a domestic matter for the Chinese Government.”

McClay adds that “if credible evidence of human rights abuses came to light,” National would expect the government to “make representations to China through formal channels”.

The Chinese embassy did not reply to any questions about the issue.

So neither the Prime Minister nor the Foreign Minister would comment (in this era, being overseas is not a justification for saying someone “couldn’t” comment). We saw the Prime Minister’s own feeble stance on this issue a couple of weeks ago

She said she might raise her concerns at a future meeting with Chinese officials, but made no firm commitment.

But McClay’s stance plumbs whole new depths. Had he said “look, we know Beijing is an awful regime and often treats its citizens abominably, but we really want an upgraded FTA”, that would be bad enough, but at least it would be honest. Instead he adopts the chilling language of the regime itself, suggesting that these (forced) internment and indoctrination camps are “vocational training centres”, and that the accompanying intense surveillance and control regime (electronic surveillance, let alone the government spies Uighur families are forced to host in their own houses) is just as nothing. Does he suppose that the million of so people locked up in these centres are there voluntarily? What bits of the evidence of systematic abuse and repression does he not believe? Or, more probably, does he just not care?

All manner of brutal regimes have had Western apologists. But history tends not to look very kindly on them. And this man sits in our Parliament – alongside Jian Yang – aspiring to again be a senior Cabinet minister. In my view, anyone that senior who sinks that low should never be allowed anywhere near the reins of government. He disgraces himself, and disgraces a once-decent and honourable party. The same party whose current leader last year, as a senior government minister, signed up with Beijing to some sickening aspiration to a “fusion of civilisations”.

To be clear, the current government seems no better, content to sit by as evil happens, even if not quite so sickeningly crass in their wording as Todd McClay.

As the Stuff article notes, more or less in passing, China’s human rights record has been under review in Geneva this week (part of a five-yearly review that all UN members face). I’m no great fan of the United Nations or its associated bodies, and the Human Rights Council seems to be mostly a sick joke. Nonetheless, these forums – the Universal Periodic Reviews – do pose the opportunity for other countries to ask (openly) searching questions about evident or apparent abuses. A leading US China scholar wrote about it on his blog

On Nov.6, the People’s Republic of China underwent its third UN Universal Periodic Review (UPR), which is a peer review at the Human Rights Council of China’s human rights record. Each country, ridiculously, only had 45 seconds to speak! All eyes were watching if China’s mass incarceration of Muslims in Xinjiang and related repression outside the detention prisons would be criticized. Many countries did speak out, including the U.S., Canada, Germany and the UK. The only Muslim country that raised this issue is Turkey. It is shameful that Muslim countries and their regional organizations have done so little to date. The PRC cleverly lined up a large number of sycophant states to sing its praises and take time away from states that wanted to be critical. (All UPR-related documents are here at the UN’s website.)The PRC has moved relentlessly to increase its influence over the Human Rights Council while the U.S. has withdrawn from it. Accordingly, many countries, including developing and authoritarian countries that rely on China’s economic ties, lavished high praise on China’s human rights achievements, instead of treating the session seriously.

But in addition to the 45 seconds, individual countries could lodge written questions. Many did. From our traditional allies, there was (a selection in each case)

The UK asking

When will the Government implement the recommendations made by the UN Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination regarding Xinjiang Autonomous Uyghur Region, including to: halt the practice of detaining individuals who have not been lawfully charged, tried, and convicted for a criminal offence in any extra-legal detention facilities; immediately release individuals detained under these circumstances; eliminate travel restrictions that disproportionately affect members of ethnic minorities; and provide statistics on the numbers of those held involuntarily in the past 5 years?

What steps is the Government taking to ensure that freedom of religion or belief, freedom of movement, and cultural rights are respected and protected for all religious and ethnic groups in China, particularly those in Tibet?

What steps is the Government taking to ensure that lawyers, activists, journalists and human rights defenders including Wang Quanzhang, Yu Wensheng, Jiang Tianyong, Li Yuhan, Gao Zhisheng, Tashi Wangchuk, Ilham Tohti, Wu Gan and Huang Qi are protected from harassment, mistreatment and discrimination, and that those detained for merely exercising their constitutional rights are released without delay?

And the US

Can China provide the number of people involuntarily held in all detention facilities in Xinjiang during the past five years, along with the duration and location of their detention; the grounds for detention; humanitarian conditions in the centers; the content of any training or political curriculum and activities; the rights detainees have to challenge the illegality of their detention or appeal the detention; and any measures taken to ensure that their families are promptly notified of their detention?

Can China clarify the basis for its apparent criminalization of peaceful religious practices as justification to detain people in these political “re-education” camps in Xinjiang, as well as which officials are responsible for this policy?

Since the Chinese constitution guarantees religious liberty, what steps is China taking to stop the continued repression of religious freedom, such as increasingly strict regulations being passed or proposed on religious activity China has passed or proposed, the detention and mistreatment of Falun Gong practitioners, and the church closure and demolition campaigns seen in multiple provinces throughout the country?

What is China doing to end the unlawful practices of torture, secret detentions, and detention without due process halt the practice of detaining individuals who have not been lawfully charged, tried and convicted for a criminal offense in including Wang Quanzhang, who has been held incommunicado for over three years without an open trial, and Swedish citizen Gui Minhai, who was released in 2017 and redetained in January 2018?

And Australia

·Paragraph 4 of China’s 2018 National Report states that “there is no universal road for the development of human rights in the world”, with the relevant section headed “human rights with Chinese characteristics”; in contrast China’s 2013 report stated “China respects the principle of universality of human rights”.

Does China still accept the principle of universal human rights, and if not, can China explain how its conception of human rights fits into the international human rights regime built on the concept of universality? Can China explain how “human rights with Chinese characteristics” differs from universal human rights, and if it does not, why it wishes to introduce this distinction?

·Australia is concerned about reports regarding the arbitrary detention of Uighurs and other Muslim groups in Xinjiang, and the lack of transparency and access for members of the international community, including monitors from the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

What steps is China taking to ensure that the concerns raised by the United Nations Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) are being addressed in an open and transparent manner?

And what of New Zealand? Perhaps our diplomats used their 45 seconds in a courageous and searching intervention? But there was no sign of any advance written questions. No sign our government cares even a little.

It isn’t even as if this is some left vs right issue. Human Rights Watch and the United Nations are alarmed by what is going on, but so (according to a piece in my inbox this morning) is the libertarian think-tank the Cato Institute. Can we make a difference? On our own no, although us speaking up (even quietly) would probably lead Beijing to sit up and take a bit of notice – if even their pet Caucasians (a description someone passed on) are willing to speak, perhaps we need some different tactics? – but sometimes you just have to do what is right.

I’m going to end as I ended a post last week

If ever you're confused [or misled] over trading relationships vs values, go over what Churchill had to say about Police States and the Rights of Man. It comes back to the values, not bank balances, we want to have for ourselves and for our children. pic.twitter.com/z5hkX4RgUm

The Churchill quote – from his famous ‘iron curtain” speech – is very apposite, but in the specific New Zealand context, and the way our politicians court the regime and fear doing or saying anything even slightly controversial, the commentator’s own line was a nice place to end.

It comes back to the values, not bank balances, we want to have for ourselves and for our children.

Perhaps ethics, morality and decency mean something different in Rotorua. But I’m pretty sure it isn’t that. It is just that they seem to mean something different at the top of our two main political parties.

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14 thoughts on “Perhaps standards are different in Rotorua?”

Thank you for continuing to hammer this issue. I have not been to China and cannot read any chinese language so my understanding is all second or third hand. So I have a choice between believing the BBC and the Guardian journalists about repression of the Uighur population in China or I can believe Todd McClay’s “vocational training centres”. Well I’ve made my choice and Mr McClay is an absolute disgrace (I had to really tone down the words that sprang to mind).

To clarify matters – generally we live and let live. If we think our neighbours are mildly mistreating their children we keep quiet about it. We do so because ‘he who is perfect should throw the first stone’, we do so because we believe our involvement will not improve matters, we do so because we are scared. So it is only with considerable reluctance that we make our criticism known to our neighbours and even more reluctantly that we report them to the police. However even the most timid person draws the line at parroting the neighbours feeble excuses.

PS: rather proud about the UK’s comments and pleased with the USA and Australia comments. Note Australia’s economy is probably more dependant on China than ours. And for those who make a moral equivalence between USA and China please note the election to Congress of Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib.

While the strong stance from the UK is to be applauded, it’s a great pity that they are becoming increasingly totalitarian themselves. Persecuting comedians and harassing grandmothers over thought crime is now a feared reality in modern day Britain. Who would have thought the country that gave so much could fall so far. Here are two very short clips; the promise and the betrayal?

Having spoken to a chinese national who holds NZ citizenship who spent 8 years in one of these re-education centres. I do believe they are indeed more actually re-education centres where they have access to massive libraries on communist literature, sit for exams, have plays and orchestras, sing songs typical of communist propaganda. They have to demonstrate active participation in all the activities and develop a community and a social concious.

Ms Ghahraman – urgent debate in the House please!
I see the comments section is disabled for the article – does that mean anything? I note the comments are usually left on when discussing Israel or Palestine. Why not China too?

Which article? I have noticed that Stuff avoids comments on some articles and not others. Given the quality of many of the comments I hardly blame them. But whoever has published an article relating to Ms Ghahraman and China may wish to protect commentators from having their homes broken into as per Anne-Marie Brady.

When Hitler first gained power he employed good German women to go through pre-WW1 school records identifying Jews. Can I be certain that NZ does not and will not in the future have AI searches of computer blogs searching for harsh critics of the CCP? If they identify myself and many of the contributors to this blog will they punish us or our families via an international equivalent to the Chinese Social Credit System? Am I paranoid or just very cautious? Certainly the best defense for those who cannot resist expressing awkward opinions about the CCP is to get our opinions shared as widely as possible.

I was about to write ‘they can’t punish all of us’ when I realised Uighurs out number new Zealanders two to one. I’m not a fearless man of principle – I am too old to hold my tongue.

You miss the fact that Muslim countries are saying nothing because you fail to grasp what Islam is and hence can’t understand their silence. There are three stages of jihad and the uigurhs are practicing the second (defensive jihad) or perhaps third stage (offensive jihad) without implementing the first stage (stealth jihad e. g. falsely stating it is a religion of peace). The third stage needs a caliphate to proclaim an all out war so this is the main reason for the silence because the uigurhs are not following Islamic protocol. The second stage is what you see in Israel and Europe where complete lies are given when an terrorist attack is perpetrated by saying it was because of American aggression for example. The aim really is to strike terror into non-Muslims. The three stages of jihad mirror Mohammed’s life from his removal by his tribe from Mecca (stage1 where he tried to deceive his tribe into believing him using non-violent methods) to Medina (stage 2) where he robbed the tribe’s caravan trains and killed and took sex slaves. Once he was strong enough from this he launched into the third stage of all out war and 1400 hundred years later 270 million non-Muslims have died to date. The Chinese are simply better educated on the facts about Islam as are the Burmese or the Central African Republic.

Here is one of the many things written in Arabic (translated by Ibrahim Raymond) showing the first stage of jihad from the Islamic heartland of Saudi Arabia in reference to the half a billion dollars the Saudis spend funding US universities in reference to copying Muhammad bribing one of his enemies.
Written by Sheikh Abd al-Aziz ibn Baz (d. 1999), former grand mufti and highest religious authority in the Saudi government, it still appears on the website.

According to this governmentally-supported fatwa, Muslims — that is, the entire Saudi citizenry — must “oppose and hate whomever Allah commands us to oppose and hate, including the Jews, the Christians, and other mushrikin [non-Muslims], until they believe in Allah alone and abide by his laws, which he sent down to his Prophet Muhammad…

To prove this, Baz quotes a number of Koranic verses that form the doctrine of Loyalty and Enmity — the same doctrine every Sunni jihadi organization evokes to the point of concluding that Muslim men must hate their Christian or Jewish wives (though they may enjoy them sexually).

These Koran verses include: “Do not take the Jews and the Christians for your friends and allies” (5:51) and “You shall find none who believe in Allah and the Last Day on friendly terms with those who oppose Allah and His Messenger [i.e., non-Muslims] — even if they be their fathers, their sons, their brothers, or their nearest kindred” (58:22; see also 3:28, 60:4, 2:120).

After quoting the verses, Baz reiterates:

Such verses are many and offer clear proofs concerning the obligation to despise infidels from the Jews, Christians, and all other non-Muslims, as well as the obligation to oppose them until they believe in Allah alone.

But the first stage of jihad is mainly about deception and from reading your posts it seems to be working well.